


Filthy Water Can't Be Washed

by theinstinct



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: AU: Jackson's blue eyes, AU: Matt is not dead, Angst, Canon up until S2 finale, F/M, Kanima, M/M, PTSD, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinstinct/pseuds/theinstinct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone assumes that the kanima business is over and done with, but then Matt returns. He has a list that he doesn't care about but the names are seared into his mind, he needs to right the scales again, and there is no one else he can count on for that except his Fury, Jackson. </p><p>What should have been a simple murder spree becomes much more complicated as Jackson tries to get out of an impossible situation. Jackson just wants to live again, or maybe there is hope in just giving up and giving in. He never did tell anyone what happened between his blackouts, and it seems that Matt cannot even help him out there, because death does something to you and Matt's memories are just as fragmented.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> The tags might change in the future. For now, they are more or less accurate. Regarding the rape/ non-con tag, it will be referenced to in passing or in flashbacks, but I put it there just to be safe. This is a work in progress. :)

He went under.

He knew better this time.

He thrashed.

In the muted silence that the lacrosse helmet created, he sometimes thought that this was why he was working so hard to be faster and stronger––to last longer under the water.

He'd ventured to the school pools once, twice, a million times; while that jackass Jackson preened and carried about like he was the king of the world, Matt was angry at himself for being unable to take those few steps closer. The fear would be suffocating and his limbs would seize up, he just knew it, but he would get past it.

Fear couldn't kill you, he didn't believe in that bullshit. Yeah, right. The Coach would keep him from drowning. Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he would be so sick of Matt's inability to do something as simple as _swim_ that he would let him drown. Again. So, no swimming.

Lacrosse would have to do. Lacrosse would have to be training enough to shove off the crushing pressure of water and gravity. Lacrosse clearly wasn't training enough to ward off murderous intent. And in the end, there was only pain. His head exploded and Matt had a flash of Brazil's poster that he had stuffed in the back of his closet.

He knew he was dying.

He wasn't going to be brought back this time.

This time, it was the end.

And in the end, he didn't see anything. They talked about that little white light you see when you die, but he didn't see anything. Just darkness. Everything was dark.

Everything except the thing that crawled and itched and burned in his side.

It was that thing that forced air into his lungs again. And he started choking and coughing and thrashing because it wasn't air that he'd dragged into his tired lungs but _water_.

This time, there were no hands wrapped tightly around his neck.

His shoulder scraped painfully against something hard and rough––a root, or a pipe. He clawed at it desperately, anything to get him out of the water.

The surface was much closer than Matt had anticipated.

He stood up with a noisy gasp of air. _Air._ He reached up to push his wet hair out of his eyes and found that his hands were caked in mud and silt. In fact, he was covered completely in river water and mud.

Had it been a full moon when he'd been pushed under the water? Matt didn't remember it being such a bright night. He didn't even think about what had happened until his gaze happened to settle on the lit window of the Beacon Hills Police Department.

Remembering didn't take very long, and neither did the rage surging up again.

There was something different this time, however. Something disconnected, not right. There was a buffer between himself and the anger and thirst for vengeance, thin as the membrane that separated cells from one another.

But there was something familiar lurking in the background of his thoughts, too. Something Matt followed instinctively.

His side cramped painfully, but Matt just hissed in pain, squeezing it until it went numb, and he clambered up the riverbank blindly. Distantly, he realised that he didn't have any shoes, though he still had that stripped shirt and jeans he'd worn to Lydia Martin's birthday party.

It didn't take long for him to understand just where his senses were leading him.

He saw the silver Porsche first, idling and incongruous in this part of town, before he trudged right up to the driver's side of the car. Matt had intended to knock on the window, but what he ended up doing was the first thing that felt _right_ that night: he pressed his hand, splayed, against the window, looking down at the boy inside and willing him to do the same.


	2. Did You Know Him?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post S2; Matt has returned and against his better judgement, Jackson lets himself get talked into helping Matt "finish it". Or, Jackson has a lot of issues that he has yet to work through and is doing a really bad job of coping.

He didn’t think _this is a nightmare_. He thought _this is like a nightmare_.   
  
There was the sound of water. Jackson edged a corner of his curtains aside but it wasn’t raining outside. It was the shower running in his bathroom. It was three in the morning and someone was using his fucking shower. Any other time, his parents might have taken notice. However, with the way he had made a habit out of jerking awake and sitting under the shower in the middle of the night, Jackson wouldn’t be surprised if they thought that that was normal behaviour by now.   
  
As normal as he got nowadays, anyway.   
  
Jackson had taken painfully methodical measures to maintain the illusion that nothing had changed. It wasn’t that hard. It just demanded a lot of effort on his part. At the end of the day, it was just an extension of the spoiled rich kid façade he kept up, with a generous side of overbearing douchebag to make sure that no one had any reason to want to pry beyond the gaudy golden veneer.   
  
He still went for his morning runs, even though his endurance was perfect and his new werewolf status ensured that he would never have any cardiovascular diseases. He was still captain of the swim team despite his frequent absences in the weeks where he had been… somewhere else. It didn’t matter that he still hesitated that split second before getting into the pool, remembering a drowning that was not his own. There was a new coach, there was a new principal, and there were even new students. All there to replace the ones that were gone.   
  
No one was going to replace _him_.   
  
Fortunately, lacrosse season was out, so Jackson didn’t need to get back on the field and think about what had happened there. Or deal with the horrible surge of guilt when he remembered _another_ death. Or the dozen or so deaths that had come before that one. Jackson had managed, somehow, to drum up enough anger and aggression to go after the dumbasses who wouldn’t stop with the Lazarus and zombie jokes.   
  
In the end, it had been how Jackson hadn’t changed his behaviour and habits one bit that gave him away. Not that Jackson would admit that there was anything wrong with him. There was nothing wrong with him. He would cope because there was no other option. If no one had noticed when he had been sick and when he had been _gone_ , why the fuck should they start taking notice now?   
  
_Danny noticed. Danny asked, remember? Danny––_   
  
The sound of the shower stopped. Jackson could hear the soft whisper of the shower stall door.   
  
No, this was definitely a nightmare. It had to be. Jackson wouldn’t have raised his hand to fit it perfectly to the wet one splayed on his window. He wasn’t _stupid_. He wasn’t. He would have asked Matt to go fuck himself and to fuck off and that would have been the least of all the things he could yell at him. He wouldn’t have popped open the door for that motherfucking psychopath.   
  
Most of all, Jackson wouldn’t have felt relief of all things when Matt had got into the car and clicked on his seat belt. That was some seriously hilarious shit, come to think of it. He was dead. He didn’t need to put on the damn seat belt.   
  
The star of Jackson’s nightmares padded into his bedroom in one of Jackson’s old sweatpants. His skin was flushed from the shower and Jackson couldn’t help but think that for a guy who had been dead for nearly a month, and one that had drowned, no less, Matt looked surprisingly healthy.   
  
“You’re dead,” his voice was surprisingly flat. “You’re dead and you’re not here.”   
  
Jackson jerked back a couple of steps just as Matt started to take a step towards him.   
  
Matt just gave him an exasperated look, his bright blue eyes gleaming with whatever miasma of insanity that was still brewing in that head of his. He walked towards him again.   
  
Jackson tried for defiant. He tucked his chin down and drew on every ounce of courage he had and snarled, standing his ground this time. “If I kill you now, no one would know.”   
  
“ _You_ would know,” Matt replied reasonably. “I’m pretty sure there would be a body, too.”   
  
The look he shot Jackson then was unfriendly. Jackson wanted to say that he saw the intent in the way Matt’s lips thinned out but he was still surprised when Matt lashed out. The close-fisted slap caught him squarely in the jaw and Jackson stumbled back, tripped over the edge of his bed and went down hard on his side. Dazed and confused, Jackson thought he tasted blood, but then he was distracted by the stab of pain in his side when Matt kicked him like he wanted to break Jackson’s ribs.   
  
“You promised to protect me!”   
  
Jackson saw the second kick coming. He could have stopped it––he was faster, stronger and damn it, he was the co-captain of the lacrosse team. But then he heard the quaver in Matt’s voice and the helpless little sob that accompanied the shiny gleam in Matt’s eyes. Matt sounded like Jackson had betrayed him and, God help him, Jackson couldn’t shake off the feeling of failure that floored him.   
  
Jackson got up slowly, panting noisily like a trapped animal. He could feel his ribs snapping back into place slowly under his skin and he winced in pain. How could Matt look so scared and lost after hitting him like that, like Jackson was the bully? He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do.   
  
“Were you happy when it happened?”   
  
Jackson’s head snapped up. “Wha––”   
  
“Did you laugh, Jackson?”   
  
“I––”   
  
“Were you laughing while it happened? While I drowned. _Again!_ That was what happened, wasn’t it?” Matt was suddenly too close and he was _crying_ , and every bit of insecurity that Jackson had ever felt, every time he had questioned whether he was worth anything, surged back up and choked him. “I was drowning and _you let me die!_ ”   
  
Jackson wanted to jerk away. He wanted to tell himself that not only was the guy a crazy, creepy stalker, he had also turned Jackson inside out and remade him into that monster. He had used Jackson as if he was nothing more than an object. A tool. Jackson wanted so badly to feel anger and hatred. But he was lifting his hands to grip Matt’s bare shoulders, and all the while, Jackson told himself that it was because he didn’t want Matt any closer to him. “I _tried_!”   
  
“You didn’t try hard enough!”   
  
“I couldn’t get any closer! The wa––”   
  
“You need to help me.” Matt had a hand on the back of Jackson’s neck and he squeezed hard. “You have to. Help me finish it.” Jackson felt powerless as Matt leaned in and guided Jackson’s head down so that his forehead was pressed against his shoulder. “You the only one I’ve got. You’re mine, Jackson. You’re my Fury.” Jackson couldn’t help the full body shudder that rattled up his spine. No one else made him feel like that. Irreplaceable. Unique. Like his worth was beyond any question because he was the only one. “It’ll be different this time. We’ll do it together. I won’t force you. I won’t need to. You know why I need to do this. Only you, Jackson. Only you.”   
  
“Matt, please.” Jackson’s throat was too dry. His words were stuck. “I don’t want to do this again. We can’t.”   
  
Matt had tucked his face against the side of his neck. Matt’s skin wasn’t cool anymore. He wasn’t dead. He was really there. His skin was warm, just like the huff of breath playing over Jackson’s ear. Jackson could feel the hot wetness of tears tickling against his jaw as Matt continued to cry quietly. “We kill murderers, Jackson. Mine, as well as your parents’.”   
  
Pressed so closed, it was only then that Jackson noticed the patch of darker skin crawling up the right side of Matt’s body. But it wasn’t skin––they were scales.   
  
Somehow, it wasn’t enough to keep Jackson from wrapping his arms around Matt. He thought about how alone he had felt with his bloodstained hands, sitting in his bedroom, and how no one had ever seemed to catch on that there was something wrong. He thought about that moment when he had seen himself, the abomination, reflected in Lydia’s eyes. Come to think of it, she had been crying, too. Most of all, Jackson remembered when he had nodded to Derek and stood there to let the Alpha kill him.   
  
It seemed like he had no other destiny, but maybe Matt did.   
  
“Okay, Matt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and the comment! They are very much appreciated and encourages me to continue writing this. :) The other characters that are tagged will definitely make an appearance very, very soon!


	3. Can We Freeze Karma?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little look into how Jackson's friendships and relationships weathered the kanima debacle. Hint: in the Teen Wolf universe, no one ever gets a break.

Jackson went through the motions like a sleepwalker. School seemed an arbitrary and incredulous thing when he took into account what had happened since he had come back from the dead. No, since McCall had become suspiciously good at lacrosse. That was what had started all this for Jackson: lacrosse and the need to be better when he had no right to it. 

He slammed his locker door shut. He just wanted to finish this necessary part of his day and go home to–– No, he just wanted to go home. It was just his luck that his paths crossed with Stilinski's, and Stiles had decided that this was one of those off days where he actually wanted to talk to him when they had absolutely nothing to say to each other. 

"So. The creek froze over and there was ice everywhere," Stiles began, falling into step beside Jackson. They did not share their last period class.

Jackson ignored him and kept walking. He almost walked into Lydia, who had been rounding a corner. 

"Jackson! We need to––" She went suspiciously quiet when she saw Stiles. They were obviously talking about the same thing, and it was not something Jackson cared to stay to listen. 

He tried to ignore the hollow ache in his chest, because feeling miserable wasn't going to get him Lydia back. They had talked the morning after what had happened in the warehouse and they'd decided that they would not be getting back together. Lydia implied that there might be a 'next time' and a 'later', but Jackson knew better. If he had not been good enough before, he was now so far from any type of good that it was ridiculous. She deserved better, and the look in her eyes said that she agreed. 

It was okay. Everything was okay. And he wasn't going to put up with Stiles if he didn't need to. 

"Hey! I'm talking to––" 

Jackson could hear the frustrated grumble and he took a certain petty enjoyment in it. He had to stop, however, when Stiles continued, "How many people do you think drive a Porsche in Beacon Hills?" 

Stiles flashed him a sarcastic grin when Jackson turned around to scowl at him. "That's right. We saw you. Now, are you going to tell us what you were doing there?" 

"'We'?" Jackson looked from Stiles to Lydia, and then back again, telling himself that he was being stupid and jealous and Stiles meant him and McCall, instead. Lydia just returned the look Jackson was giving her with an expectant look of her own, both eyebrows raised. "You told me you needed time alone and now you're with _him_?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't think that I needed to ask your permission to spend time with someone who actually gives me the time of day." That had clearly made Lydia angry and her eyes were bright with that indignation that she used to hide so well. And she was entitled to it, surely, because that wasn't Jackson's business anymore, was it? She could go out with whomever she liked, do whatever the hell it was that helped her cope. For some reason, Jackson still felt cheated, and like his trust had been misplaced. She didn't want him, but she couldn't just come right out and say that. Funny how she didn't bother to hide it right now. 

Jackson forced his expression into something arrogant and unruffled, even though all he wanted to do was escape. "No. You're right. That's none of my business. And I don't know what the two of you were doing stalking me, but leave me out of it. Just–– Stay away from me."

"Right. I can see how well working alone has worked out for you." Stiles nodded at no one in particular as he said so, probably because he thought it would give it more emphasis. "Because that worked out great in the past, of course. You know, one would expect you to be more grateful, since we're risking our hides for the likes of you."

Jackson actually stopped and turned around. "What? What exactly is the likes of me? Monsters? Murderers? You can just say it, you know." His words came out in a hiss, so quickly that for a heartbeat, he wasn't even fully aware of what he had just blurted out, or that Stiles and Lydia had heard him at all. Jackson blanched when it finally sank in, however, but he wasn't sticking around for the look in their eyes or Stiles' retort. 

_It doesn't matter._ If he repeated it to himself enough times, it might become true. _It doesn't matter._ Everything was starting to become clear, now. He'd always felt like he didn't quite fit in, like there was something wrong with him, and now that he knew what it was, the people around him were starting to wise up to it, too. 

Class passed in a blur. 

Danny was two tables over and he didn't once look at Jackson. Jackson had told him everything that had happened, had explained his bizarre behaviour, the winter formal, and then his sickness. He'd poured out what had happened after the bite, about the blackouts, about the murders. Like Lydia, Danny had said that he had to think about all that. He needed time. He had let Jackson spill his guts, he'd listened and had done his best to comfort him, and then nothing. Danny couldn't even look at him, it seemed. 

When the final bell rang, Danny just left. Jackson's phone remained silent as it had been since he'd come back: no calls, no messages. It was like he'd never come back. In a way, maybe a part of him _had_ died, and he'd lost pieces of himself to the masters of the kanima. 

Unexpectedly, Matt was waiting for him in the car park, next to his car. 

"What are you doing here?" Jackson looked around nervously, half-panicked, and crowded close to Matt as if he could hide him from view with his body. "Get up! Have you lost your mind?" 

Matt got up from sitting on the ground, dusting himself off with a hand while cradling his camera protectively in the other. God only knew where he had got his camera back from. Wasn't it locked up in Evidence at the BHPD? Or locked in the house that the Daehlers no longer lived in? Matt looked odd dressed in Jackson's clothes, when Jackson could only remember him drenched and muddy. He looked so... normal. Like he could have been any old teenager in tiny Beacon Hills. Matt's eyes were very blue and strangely earnest, "I got tired of waiting in your room. I needed to see you." 

Jackson started a bit when Matt grabbed his elbow. The touch was not ungentle, and he squeezed Jackson's arm, "You look upset. I can almost feel it. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. We just need to get out of here." 

He wanted to shake Matt's hand off, but something stopped him. Matt's hand was warm and it skimmed up along his arm and curled over his shoulder. 

"You don't have to lie about it. I know. I know what it feels like to be alone." Matt leaned closer, and both his hands were on Jackson's shoulders now, "But you're not alone anymore, remember? We'll be each other's pack, each other's best friend. No one is going to understand you the way I do, and no one will know me better than you do." 

Matt finally let Jackson herd him into his car. Jackson couldn't help glancing about surreptitiously to check and see if Stiles or Lydia were creeping about, but there didn't seem to be anyone around to see someone who was supposed to be dead talking to him. Good. 

"We have so much to do, Jackson. But we'll be fine because we're a team." Matt fished Jackson's phone from its slot in the dash, and then turned on GPS. "Starting here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this took a very long time. I had to take a break because I got a bit confused. Hopefully I will be more consistent with this. Sorry to the people who actually read it and were waiting for the next chapter! :(
> 
> The chapter is mostly exposition, I know, but I had to set up the other characters in order to give justification for why Jackson would trust Matt at all and consent to do what he is asking him to do. Please keep in mind that this chapter is from Jackson's POV, and that's all I'm going to say about it!


	4. Nothing's Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt's first choice might as well be impossible so he settles for less, but even that doesn't go his way. The kanima doesn't quite work the way everyone seems to think it does.

Chris Coleman and Mary Eaton hadn't been Matt's first choice. Matt's first choice had been obvious and had come to him immediately. But Gerard Argent wasn't inclined to yield himself up for balancing out the scales again. Gerard Argent had wronged him; Chris Coleman and Mary Eaton were just names on a list, now, all things considered. 

Nevertheless, Matt would just have to work with what they did have. 

He still felt such a spurt of panic that he thought his heart had stopped and his breathing turned into wheezing when he thought about it. His death. He had died. _Again,_ maybe. Matt hadn't remembered anything the first time, but the second time had been memorable to say the least. It had to be the most vivid thing he could remember from his previous life. 

This life, however, was a new one. It was a second chance, Matt had decided, to set things right. To set _everything_ right. He knew what he'd done wrong before, he was sure, and he'd figured out why he had been turning into the kanima. That was what the scales meant, right? That he was turning into the mystical beast he had been abusing. 

Matt watched Jackson out of the corner of his eye, even though he pretended to watch the road the same way Jackson was. He supposed that if someone in Beacon Hills had to be a special snowflake, it would be her golden boy Jackson Whittemore. Only, with that body, Matt would have pegged him more as an Adonis, or maybe a Hyacinthus. He even had the death and rebirth down pat.

But that was before Matt had found out, and even now, Matt couldn't have given a coherent account of what Jackson really was, nor what had really happened. He was still Adonis––so goddamn beautiful on the outside that it was only fair that he was completely broken and devastated on the inside,––but it turned out that the biggest bully of BHHS was one of the fucking erinyes, or some modern equivalent of those spirits of vengeance. It probably was poetic to some people; to Matt, it was just sort of twisted. 

Matt wondered if that meant anything. He hadn't liked Jackson much _before_ , but he couldn't think of anyone else mattering half as much, now. Jackson was his in a way that no one else could be, and that made him Jackson's, too, didn't it? 

The car came to a stop a fair ways from the destination Matt had programmed into Jackson's phone. They were in one of the more deserted parts of downtown, in the oft-forgotten slums of Beacon Hills. 

"What do you think you're doing?" Matt started to protest but Jackson ripped his phone out of its holder and got out of his car without a word. 

"Jackson," he hissed, only to be cut off by the slam of the car door. 

Jackson refused to meet his eyes. He looked this way and that like a caged animal, and he only relaxed marginally when he was sure no one else was around to see them. More likely, so that no one would see the filthy rich star athlete of Beacon Hills consorting with a teenage murderer who was supposed to be dead, Matt thought bitterly.

"I told you we would work together," Matt said in a low voice, putting as much menace as he could into his words. What frightened the arrogant little shit most? It was the loss of control, wasn't it? And that deep-seated fear that he was worthless, because Jackson was apparently fucking blind. 

Matt was desperate but he couldn't let that show––Jackson was the only one he could count on, and the other boy had made it clear that he would bend to nothing less than terror. "You know I can _force_ you, and I'll do it, too. Are you going to break your promise again? You really are completely useless under all that bravado, aren't you?" 

Another person might have missed that minute flinch and the tightness around Jackson's eyes, before the aloofness and anger slammed back into place. Not Matt, though. Matt was highly perceptive and saw the world as a never-ending series of captured moments where he cropped out everything unimportant and ugly, and focused on the little bits of beauty that peppered his days. Jackson, in particular, was someone Matt had always paid attention to, but who didn't? Everything Jackson did seemed designed to demand attention like it was oxygen and he couldn't live without it. 

Jackson levelled a chilly stare Matt's way and pointed out curtly, "We're walking the rest of the way. To avert suspicion." 

_Oh._ Matt cast a glance over his shoulder––Jackson hadn't driven his silver Porsche, but while his truck was much less conspicuous, it would still stick out like a sore thumb where they were going. 

"You know, like _not_ showing up at a police station and cleaning it out yourself. But Matt gets what Matt fucking wants––" Jackson bit his own words off there with a distressed look. 

He didn't explain, even when Matt cocked an eyebrow at him. He just turned and started walking mechanically, checking his phone every few minutes to make sure they were going the right way. 

It turned out the way to the shitty little apartment Chris Coleman and Mary Eaton had shacked up in wasn't as straightforward as they had thought. It had looked like it was in a one of those grey grids of misery on the edge of Beacon Hills, but what GPS hadn't shown was just how close part of the preserve was to it. They’d had to make several wrong turns, turn back at dead ends, and then take a circuitous route through a part of the preserve. 

Matt hadn't remembered the preserve being such a prominent presence in Beacon Hills––the damn thing was like a constant creeping thing that would not stop plaguing him, now. 

Maybe this was just a different woods that had nothing to do with the preserve, because it was definitely a lot less lush and... alive. Matt's memory was a strange thing, because he remembered the colours and the perspective, but he couldn't remember the woods itself as a place. 

This part of the woods that poked skinny branches into broken windows and buried a corner of the apartment building in a carpet of mouldering leaves was grey and brown and choked with rotting food and broken bottles. The apartment building was no better. The paint on the walls were peeling and yellowed. Matt would have assumed that the building was abandoned if he hadn't already seen people coming and going when he'd been there the first time with his camera. Even right then, he thought he could see their moving shadows behind the stained curtains. He fancied he could hear their hearts beating, but not for long.

"I'll bet you never even knew this part of town existed," Matt commented, his tone casual and friendly again, as if they weren't there to murder two people. They deserved it, however. They were murderers. This was justice, harsh but true. Matt intended for their bodies to look as far from a conventional animal attack as possible. Maybe people would start taking responsibility for their actions after this. 

Matt hoped Gerard Argent saw and knew what it meant. He hoped that that geriatric psychopath was scared. 

Jackson turned, and everything about him stuck out even more like a sore thumb in a run-down and miserable little place like this. He was too pretty to be there. 

"Haven't we done enough?" He craned his head to look up at a cracked window on the third floor, and the setting sun made the smattering of freckles over his cheeks and nose blend into his pale skin. Jackson's eyes were very blue, even as the sky smouldered with all the colours of a dying fire. Matt shouldn't have found the consternation on his face most attractive of all. 

"Look at them. We don't need to do anything else. They're living in this shitty hole. That's punishment enough." Jackson wrinkled his nose, studying the debris strewn all over the floor: more broken glass, cigarette butts, unnameable things that Jackson stepped wide around. It really was a bad place to live. 

Matt refused to back down. It wasn't even that he cared if Chris Coleman and Mary Eaton continued to live. He just needed to set everything right again, and Chris and Mary could not go unpunished when their friends had died very brutal deaths for the same crimes. 

"It's not about how good a life they're living. We kill murderers, Jackson. You are my Fury, and you will do it if I tell you to." He ground out the last few words, accenting them with a small shove. 

By all rights, Jackson shouldn't have stumbled, but he did. There was surprise in his widening eyes, and then fear. Good. That was what Matt wanted to see. It wasn't like he could get anything else out of Jackson, now was it? 

"Do it, Jackson." 

Jackson shook his head, backing away. The trees overhead cast their long, spidery shadows over them. "Stop it, Matt. Just–– _Stop it._ " 

Matt shoved him again, planting his hand squarely in the middle of Jackson's chest. "Do. It."

"You came back. You have a life again. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Jackson looked pained, and Matt realised with a start that he probably _was_ in pain. He didn't remember the change having caused Jackson any sort of physical pain. 

"It's strange that you say that, Jackson. It does mean something. It really does." Matt stepped closer again, kicking a bottle that was mostly intact at Jackson. Jackson ducked away and the bottle exploded against the trunk of a tree. Had he really kicked at it that hard? "For someone with perfect grades, you're pretty thick, aren't you? Or is it just because since it's not about you, it's not important? Is that it? I'm not important enough?" 

"Did you come back with amnesia or something? Since when did I ever wasted my time on just anyone? Do you think I'd drive you all the way out here and come look at this hellhole if I hadn't been listening to you?" 

In all honesty, Matt couldn't actually remember that much from before being drowned behind the police station, but that didn't matter for this. He still knew Jackson well enough. He knew what the kanima could do and the hold he had over it. He knew what he _had to do_. 

Jackson shook his head, but he shot Matt a queer look. It was a wonder that Jackson was still there at all. Matt didn't mean to say what he had said, but he needed Jackson to just stop being a stubborn ass and just do what they had come here to do. He needed to just turn into a kanima and wipe out the red in Chris Coleman and Mary Eaton's ledgers. 

"Take off your clothes, Jackson."

Jackson kept shaking his head, backing away even more. He looked like he wanted to run, and Matt had a petty desire to mock him before he had a chance to do that. Jackson had always had a rather sizeable ego problem and he would never tolerate proving Matt right, now would he? 

"Change. Just fucking change," Matt hissed. This time, he didn't bother waiting for Jackson to do as he had been told. "I took their fucking photos. You have to do it." He hands grabbed and pulled and ripped, and he could see skin suddenly––pale skin with freckles that dusted only the top of Jackson’s shoulders and left the expanse of his back unmarked. Jackson made a choked sound and finally started to push back, but it was too late. 

Most of Jackson's shirt had been torn right off him, and all that pale skin looked almost bloodless next to the patchy green scales that were starting to erupt all over him. Here a patch, there another, Jackson was marked with rippling blue and dark green at his nape, halfway up his right arm, and a swath right over his left ribs. 

Jackson definitely looked like he was in pain. 

He kept clawing at the back of his neck, making wet, choking noises, and his chest heaved as he started to hyperventilate. Matt watched in fascination, and it was almost like he could track the changes. There was a phantom pressure on his back now, and as soon as he thought that, Jackson dropped to the ground, his knees crashing down hard. Dimly, Matt noted the small burst of red as something––a sharp stone, bits of glass, or even twisted metal,––punched through Jackson's jeans and sank into his knee. He was trying to tear up the dirt now, as the scales started to ripple down his back. There were wet, popping sounds, bones breaking and realigning, but something was different this time. 

At this point, the change should have been quick. It wasn't. The scales covering Jackson's shoulders and back seemed to part in two black seams on either side of his spine. Something thick and black welled up and ran down Jackson's sides in thin rivulets. The flesh parted and white knobs peeked out of the seams, strangely clean of the dark ichor. That same black fluid was dripping down on the backs of Jackson's hands, making a small pool of darkness on the ground. Matt could see a trickle of it running down Jackson's right cheek, coming from his ear.

But then, where the black fluid was dripping, oozing or flowing from Jackson, there was suddenly red. 

The copper penny tang of blood was abruptly all Matt could smell, and on the edge of that was the out of place scent of fresh rainwater and ozone. Somewhere clung the sickly sweet, milky smell of wolfsbane.

The change came quickly then, but Jackson wasn’t the one changing. 

As Jackson started to bleed, the scales receded. Matt's side, the side covered in the same scales, started to burn. Jackson slumped to the ground, the welts in his back still bleeding freely from darkly bruised flesh. Matt didn't know to fight the change and he had wanted it so badly, though he had intended for Jackson to change. He had never imagined that the change could be pushed back towards him, but the kanima swept through him all the same. 

He could pinpoint the exact moment it leapt from Jackson to him, as if it were one beast of pure energy, a monstrous avenging angel that wept blood and had snakes for hair, sharing two physical bodies. Jackson’s and his own.

They must have been making a lot of noise. The last thing Matt was consciously aware of was the voices that were _too close_ and how he had to _protect_ the slackly unconscious Jackson at all costs. 

Chris Coleman and Mary Eaton never stood a chance when they hurried to investigate what they thought was an argument gone violent. 

Matt, now the kanima, did not allow the two murderers to get more than a glimpse of Jackson, and even less of himself. They were paralysed and down on the ground in a heartbeat, and Matt broke through ribs and sliced through their lungs and heart until they were so much useless meat. 

Bloodstained and yellow eyes flashing, Matt circled Jackson protectively and crouched low to the ground, as if waiting. 

And that was how Stiles and Lydia found them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is obviously in Matt's POV and I will alternate between Matt and Jackson for future chapters. I might do a few from Lydia's POV but I'm not sure about that yet. I'm going to write out Matt's death in my [Break This Bittersweet Spell](http://archiveofourown.org/series/40704) series, so I don't dump a whole load of padding here. 
> 
> This is also not a cliffhanger. I intend to post another chapter right after this!


	5. Familiar Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is really the second part of chapter 4 and continues immediately after it. It will likely be the same for chapter 5. I didn't expect this scene to be so long in the writing, but there you have it.

"Holy shit. Whoa." 

He heard the hissing before he actually saw the kanima. "Holy––  _Fuck._ I think that merits a fuck." 

" _Get out of my way!_ " Finding out all about the supernatural had done quite a number on Lydia's self-preservation instincts, because she shoved right past Stiles in her highly impractical heels and not only managed to walk around the dead bodies and the kanima, but she managed to do all that without falling on her face. Even more miraculously, she didn't end up like one of the corpses that the kanima had made. 

Lydia bit her lip and her eyes took on that steely look that she often got when she was mentally preparing herself to do something she didn't want to. That, or she was girding herself against the sight of her ex-boyfriend bleeding and lying so still on the ground. His chest wasn't moving at all, and that could only mean that he wasn't breathing anymore. Trying to act unperturbed, Stiles poked around the corpses, keeping a marked distance from the strangely passive kanima. He was clearly nervous, and he jumped a bit when Lydia barked at him, "Will you please come over here and help me help Jackson? He's bleeding." 

Stiles did a double take and inched closer and tried to ignore the way the kanima's yellow eyes followed him. "I thought Jackson was the kanima." He looked at the kanima with fresh horror and sudden fear, scrambling back, wishing for a weapon even though he knew from personal experience that it wouldn't help him in any way. But Lydia was right––Stiles hadn't seen Jackson right away, the way he had been hidden by the kanima's dark and weaving body. 

"No. It's not Jackson." Lydia seemed blind to all the blood and black gunk when she touched her fingers to the big pulse in Jackson's neck. She visibly slumped in relief when she found the thump of his pulse, thready and pumping fresh trickles of blood with every beat of his heart, but there. As if he could sense how close Lydia was even unconscious, Jackson drew in a deep breath and coughed, writhing weakly on the dirty ground but not waking up any further. 

"If that's not Jackson, then who is––"

It was like Jackson breathing was a switch and the kanima shed its scales to reveal its human skin underneath.

Stiles' eyes were as wide as saucers, but the expression quickly changed to anger. He was still afraid, but it didn't stop him from punching Matt square in the face. Still, he darted away quickly before Matt had regained his bearings completely and had shaken off the disorientation that must come with the change, judging by the glazed look in his eyes. The punch sobered him up pretty quickly, however. "That was for my dad, bitch."

He got up and hurried away to Lydia's side. Jackson did not look like he was in good shape at all. There were two large wounds in his back like someone had taken scalpels and jammed them into the meat of his shoulders, then drew them down to see how much he could cut through before the scalpels would get stuck in the upper curve of the ribs.

∆

Matt pretended to know what he was doing, he maintained that front flawlessly, but that was very far from the truth. All through the awkward and heavy silence of their ride to Jackson's home in Stiles' piece of shit jeep, Matt did his best to contain his confusion and panic. He was _terrified_ , and there was no greater terror than knowing that there was something very, very wrong, but knowing he had no one to turn to.

"You cannot take him away from me," Matt had said. 

None of them knew just how literally true his words were, least of all Matt himself. 

Jackson had stopped breathing again when Stiles and Lydia tried to leave Matt behind. As soon as he was too far, Jackson's body seemed to just shut down. Even with his head in Matt's lap, being held at arm and shoulder so he wouldn't roll off the seat since _someone_ drove like a freaking maniac, Jackson still had yet to regain consciousness. 

Matt wouldn't admit it, either, but he was starting to feel very concerned. What were the wounds in Jackson's back and why weren't they healing? Everything else was healing, even the scraps, cuts and bruises he had accumulated while thrashing and rolling around on the garbage-strewn ground. And now, he would have the drying blood of the two people Matt had killed adding to the mess drying on Jackson's skin. 

It wasn't just the wounds in Jackson's back that were strange. He didn't quite feel the same. In fact, Matt was slightly taken aback that he could literally feel him, now. He had known that they had some sort of mystical bond, something that Matt was sure had been key in his being able to return among the living, but now, there was no denying it. Matt was almost sure he could speak to Jackson without the other two hearing them, too. It would be like a whisper, but more primitive, carrying from one bloody-faced Fury to another. 

Never once did Matt think that Jackson might actually die, though he could tell that that was what Lydia was afraid. Stiles, it appeared, was mostly not so quietly observant. It was also interesting to note that no one had even brought up reporting the pair of corpses to the police.

Matt stayed close to Jackson even when Lydia shot him uneasy and resentful looks in turn as she cleaned him up. Under the blood, Jackson's back was splotchy with purple and blue, as if the blood vessels had ruptured under his skin just before his back had tried to open itself up. Otherwise, he was relatively untouched. Grudgingly, Lydia helped to keep Jackson propped in a sitting position next to the shower as Matt cleaned himself up. He helped himself to Jackson's clothes, which garnered even more offended looks from Lydia. Jackson remained unresponsive.

Stiles was busy snapping photos with his phone of one of Jackson's bedroom windows when they were moving Jackson to his bed. Distractedly, Stiles muttered, "You guys should look at this. It just appeared out of nowhere." 

Written large in a sloppy print on the other side of the glass was: **Water heals. Take him to preserve lake.** The words were the other way around in perfect mirror image, but it was easy enough to understand to Matt. He had a second of two entirely conflicting instincts: to take Jackson to the lake immediately set against the instinct to mistrust the strange information. "Where the hell did that come from?" 

Stiles ignored him, carrying on with his game of pretending Matt didn't exist. 

"How did that get there? Did you see something?" Lydia frowned at the message. "What does that even mean?"

Stiles stared at the window with his mouth open for a moment longer, then shook his head regretfully at Lydia. He gestured at the bathroom where Matt, Lydia and Jackson had just come from, "I wasn't paying attention, but I was standing right in front of the window, I swear! I didn't hear a single thing, and you'd think that I would since I have so many werewolves making a game out of giving me a heart attack." He turned as he was saying that last bit, opening the window and smearing the message by accident. Stiles cringed and froze for a full second before gingerly closing the window again. "Whiteboard marker. What do you know? A considerate werewolf dropping helpful hints. Why am I not buying any of this? I wonder if Derek––"

"You are not telling anyone else anything," Matt finally said. He'd just barely managed not to shout at Stiles, but it came out as sharp and a firm reprimand. "I will eviscerate you and hang you with your guts if we suddenly have werewolves to deal with."

Stiles seemed to have forgotten his resolve to pretend Matt didn't exist. "There are so many things wrong with what you've just said, so let me set you straight." He ticked off his points with a raised finger for each one of them, "One - there is no 'we'. You're supposed to be dead and dead people don't get to do jack-squat." He brandished his phone, waving it around angrily as if that would help illustrate his point better, "Two - I have a photo on my phone and I can damn well show it to anyone I fucking want to. Three - death obviously didn't make you more likeable or help develop your social skills, so maybe you should work on that before you open your mouth." Stiles quirked a smug smile, and laid out the _coup de grâce_ , "Four - you forgot the kanima plays by certain rules, and I just happen to have the rulebook, so back the fuck off." 

Lydia was conspicuously silent, but Matt's response was very eloquent. 

He walked right up to Stiles and grabbed his phone only to nonchalantly chuck it out of Jackson's second floor bedroom window. Matt pretended that it was lacrosse and he wanted to shoot a hole through the goalie's chest. The phone hit the ground outside and splintered into several pieces with a satisfying crunch. 

Stiles gaped at him as if he'd gone completely insane, which really wasn't a fair sentiment since Matt got the impression that the Sheriff's son already thought he was completely off his rocker. Which was wrong, wrong, wrong. Not true. They just didn't live in the same world. 

He would really have loved to pay Stiles back for the punch he had given him, but Matt didn't like being that close to another person save for a few exceptions. Allison had been one of those, and so was Jackson. Stiles, however, had always been part of the scenery, the part of life that Matt generally found annoying, superfluous, and most galling of all, demanding attention that it didn't warrant. So, Matt just shook his head and scoffed, saying in the most patronising tones possible, "You think you know everything about the kanima. You don't get a second chance in this. You do it, you die." 

Matt smiled mildly, "I meant 'we', as in me and Jackson. You should mind your own damn business. I could have killed your dad but I didn't. Everyone else in that damn police station died except for your dad and McCall's mum. Do you really think that was coincidence? On that note, you should get out of here." 

"Gladly. You two belong together, you know?" He made no move to leave. Instead, Stiles adopted a stubborn look and jerked his chin at Lydia, "But you're crazy if you think I'm leaving Lydia to stay alone with you two psychos." 

"I'm not the one making her stay, Stilinski. Now, get out." 

"He's waking up," Lydia spoke up suddenly, her voice barely above a whisper. She had abandoned her attempt at bandaging the wounds that were still sluggishly bleeding in favour of keeping Jackson from moving too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this unexpectedly ended in a cliffhanger. I hope you enjoyed it anyway! Next up: Matt vs. Lydia in Jackson's affections and maybe there will be a hurt/ comfort bit in the second half of the next chapter. :) There will also be more answers in the next chapter, like why Stiles and Lydia were even there to begin with, though I'm sure it's easy to guess. 
> 
> I'll be updating with Matt's death scene in the death series next, though, because I obsessively set things up like that.


End file.
